Customer Reviews

Blind Trust

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This book is almost child-like in its presentation of the characters. The Republicans are all bad, tasteless people. The Democrats are all good, fine people. Everyone except the protagonist, Eleanore, is a flat, two-dimensional cut out of a person. Mrs. Boxer needs to mature as an author, to learn to create a host of compelling characters and to tell a good story. She's trying, but she's not there yet.

I expected this book to be a light but enjoyable page-turner. But the "scandal" that was created to bring down the main character was so lame that I couldn't even make it past the first chapter. I'm still a fan of Barbara Boxer's politics, but I can't vote for this novel.

The title of this book would be more aptly titled "Blind Partisan," because that is what the author Senator Barbara Boxer is and always has been as is abundantly demonstrated in this thin and uninspired political thriller. Boxer amply upholds her distinction bestowed by Bob Dole as the most partisan Senator he had ever seen in the body as she portrays Republicans as all being malignant and conspiratorial (except of course for the moderate Republican husband of the main character Ellen Fischer--compliant, cave-in Republicans being the only kind Boxer has any use for) and Democrats as virtuous and good, driven only by pure desires to better the lives of the common man and to protect the constitution from the depredations of conservatives.

The book is disturbing, but not in the ways I think Boxer intended. These include Boxer's disdain for her political opposition and dissenting views as starkly demonstrated in the villainous character of Sam Slaughter, a conservative talk show host obviously representing Rush Limbaugh, who Boxer characterizes as "abusing the First ­Amendment" and says of him "That man's evil. He's like a disease." I have no problem visualizing these as actual conversations about Limbaugh occurring in Boxer's Senate office.

I'd like to ask Boxer what she considers "abusive free speech," speech not actionable in a civil court as either slanderous or libelous. The Founders didn't recognize such a concept. Interesting Boxer portrays herself and her party as such champions of the constitution and civil liberties when she is so glaringly contemptuous of free speech rights in this part of the book and considers dissenting views "evil" and "like a disease."

Did Boxer consider Michael Moore's smears against George W. Bush or Democratic claims that Bush invaded Iraq for oil "abusing the First Amendment," despite nearly every top Democrat from Bill Clinton and Al Gore on down saying Saddam had WMD long before Bush was president and long before Bush was saying so as well as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid and many other Congressional Democrats who saw the same intelligence President Bush had all concluding Iraq had WMD as well?

And of course the majority of Senate Democrats voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq seeing the same intelligence both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used in concluding that Saddam had WMD, but still Democrats hypocritically accused Bush of "cooking the intelligence," a crime, and thus if this accusation is falsely made as 3 different independent investigations in fact determined it was, it constitutes slander i.e. abusive free speech.

What about those on the left, including Michael Moore, who strongly implied Bush had some role in at best covering up warnings we'd be attacked on 9/11 and at worst conspired in the attacks? Any abusive free speech there or did Boxer merely nod her head in agreement with these ugly accusations?

The book's uninteresting, non-engrossing plot centers around a smear campaign against Senator Fischer by of course those Republican fiends, involving the Senator's investments and a chief of staff whose religious background is called into question. Of course Democrats would NEVER seek to take out their opponents at the knees using charges of ethical and financial impropriety, not to mention trying to make them look like religious nuts. Just ask Sarah Palin!

Interesting that Boxer uses this book to announce she now finds such smear campaigns so morally repugnant after having engaged in a few herself first against Clarence Thomas and then later her first Senate opponent Bruce Hershenson, accusing him of being a patron of strip clubs (while she later hypocritically defended Bill Clinton engaging in an affair with a White House intern.).

As a thriller the book fails to create tension or to draw in the reader. What held my attention was the narrow black and white views Boxer harbors of the partisan divide (you know the kind of black and white views Democrats bristled over Bush as having) and her thinly guised disrespect for those passionate about national security (like that on full display in Boxer's "call me Senator" tirade against Brigadier General Michael Walsh in the Senate committee hearing). This contempt is shown in her unflattering portrayal of the Carl Satcher character, the Director of Homeland Security, who is an exaggerated characture of national security policy makers, espousing draconian security policies no one has actually proposed in the real world but which Boxer has to draw out of proportion to all reality to fit with her anti-defense worldview. I kept reading to plumb the depths of Boxer's radicalism rather than out of any real interest in the story.

I've noted by the way that Boxer is not scheduling a single townhall meeting on healthcare or any other pressing issue in California during the August Senate recess, but has plenty of time to be back in D.C. all over MSNBC and CNN plugging her novel. She obviously doesn't take for granted Californians's willingness to buy this book, unlike she does our vote to re-elect her next year.

I'm unclear on Ms. Boxer's intent in writing this book, whether to give vent to her hyper-partisan antipathy towards Republicans or simply to entertain notions she may have of herself as being a female John Grisham. If meant as a political screed it fails under the weight of her own and her party's hypocrisy. If meant to establish her as a serious novelist, well MA'AM, you've got a long way to go.

For such an adult novel, it's full of juvenile "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" baloney. I'm a non-partisan Libertarian who is disgusted with both Democrats and Republicans. I've learned to move beyond the false "Democrats vs Republicans" paradigm and to realize how both parties are pretty much one and the same. I'd like to see a novel written by a non-partisan daring to show the Democrats and the Republicans in the same light. And the grade school writing style turned me off as well.

We all know she obviously had ghostwriters doing the hard stuff,... grammar, cognitive thoughts, creativity, etc. I suppose we should be glad she did SOMETHING in the last 28 years (like tooting her obnoxious little horn)! Even a huge dose of Botox won't help here.

I have opened this book on several occasions trying to finish it so I could post a review. I give up. I did not like this book and I could not get into it.

This is an important book in that it describes the intensity of the warfare, plotting, character assassination, and deceit that Senator Boxer is trying to let us know goes on in Washington. The book also serves as a signal flag, waving wildly to show us how our civil liberties are in danger and how much pressure there is for warrant-less wiretapping, surveillance of the American public, buildup of the Homeland Security apparatus to where we might have a tank on every street corner 'to protect us.'

It is also a fairly well-spun 'spy' type of yarn--a bit in the John Grisham mold in that the outcome is never really in doubt but you care enough about the characters to still read through to the end.

The down side of the book is that much of the writing comes directly from Roget's book of overused cliches. I began to turn down a corner of the page for every glaring one, and turned down close to half the pages in the first half of the book. After that, I gave up tracking them and just tried to attend to the story. However, the flow of the story breaks for me when I have to read "When one door closes another opens," "Just remember, this too will pass," "She felt a touch of that cold creep down her spine," and on and on.

If you decide to read this book, try to suppress expectations for quality of writing, and attend to the story as best you can.

After reading the first 20 to 20 pages of this crap, I tossed it into the trash. If this is who is sitting in Washington running our country, we have a major problem. Get her out of Washington and stop her from putting this imature junk on the market.

I've had this sitting on my Vine to be reviewed pile for several years, likely, and I finally just have to say that I couldn't finish it. I nearly never give up on books, but I couldn't get past the horrible writing on this one. I am actually fine with the Senator's politics, but I hope the ghost writer also has a day job, because the writing style was so awfully simplistic as to make whatever plot there is not matter. Again, I feel somewhat bad reviewing this, as I couldn't finish it - I suppose there is a slight chance that it got better past the first 1/3 of the book. I think in a way that not being able to finish it is a fact worth noting, though. Cannot recommend.

It's been a long time since I've read a thriller...so it's hard for me to say if my disappointment with "Blind Trust" is with the book itself or with the genre. As much as I applaud Senator Boxer's body of work...this book wouldn't be what I would consider a great achievement.

The characters are barely disguised - their real-life counterparts very visible beneath the pen names. The plot also seems ripped from today's headlines...but the behind the scenes glimpse of the Senator's staff was interesting.

As a book to read on a plane or while sitting by a pool, this might work, but much to my dismay, I can't say much more about it than that. I would probably pick up Senator Boxer's next book - but might choose to get it from a library.